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Mr. Hoon: Can the hon. Gentleman give a single example of a Conservative Minister calling for a stronger second Chamber?
Dr. Fox: It is always easy for one Government to ask why a previous Government did not do something when they were in power. It was never regarded as a priority. But many Conservative Members have, for many years, believed that there was strong case for reform. In 1968, the Conservative party was at the forefront of negotiations on the House of Lords, and it was the House of Commons that prevented that reform.
I have two personal reasons for being in favour of the reform of both Houses of Parliament. As a Whip in the previous Government, I believed that the Whipping process was too strong. Through the Whips, the Executive had too much power. I still believe that to be true. Moreover, as a Minister in the Foreign Office, I never felt myself to be under great scrutiny by the House of Commons. There is a role, to which I shall come, for the greater scrutiny of Ministers.
One of the advantages of being in opposition is that we have experience of being in government, as well as the rather unpalatable task of being the Opposition. For Ministers to say that, because we did not do something when we were in power it cannot be important, is naive and disingenuous.
Mr. Fallon:
Before my hon. Friend takes the process of personal self-flagellation too far, will he not totally ignore the role of previous Conservative Governments in strengthening the upper House? After all, it was a Conservative Government who introduced life peerages in the first place.
Dr. Fox:
There were also the Select Committees, which gave hon. Members a greater say, to which I shall come. Notwithstanding that--I hoped to tread the path between self-righteousness and self-flagellation rather more delicately than I obviously did--experience gives us a chance to consider how the system operates. Many ex-Ministers feel that Parliament does not provide sufficient scrutiny. I know that some feel that more would not be a good idea anyway and would be rather inconvenient for Ministers, but, as we are in an era when
The second area that we want to consider concerns draft statutory instruments, and that brings us to the question of secondary legislation. Most of our legislation now is secondary legislation. There is a strong argument that the structure of both Houses of Parliament was designed primarily to consider primary legislation. In a system where most of our legislation is now secondary, we must ask whether Parliament fulfils its most basic task, which is the scrutiny of legislation that affects the British people. Serious questions must be asked about the current mechanism for doing so.
There is a potentially dramatically increased role for an upper Chamber to consider secondary legislation. With the best will in the world, that growing volume of secondary legislation, not least that which comes from beyond our borders through the European Union, will require ever more scrutiny.
A good example of that came in our debates on the Lords amendments to the Scotland Bill. We talked about quantitative distribution of international obligations and it became clear that the process of consultation between Westminster and the Scottish Parliament was rather unclear. Those European obligations will have to be scrutinised carefully in the upper House. The Government must take that into account as we move towards the interim Chamber, and the royal commission will have to take that seriously when it discusses a proper and fully operational stage 2.
The third matter under consideration in the new clauses is the scrutiny of Ministers of the Crown. As long as members of the Executive sit in the legislature, and, therefore, as long as there are Ministers in the House of Lords, it is essential that they are scrutinised and questioned. That is especially important because Ministers in the other House are direct appointees of the Prime Minister, are not answerable to the electorate and have immense Executive power without ever being accountable to anyone but the Prime Minister.
As hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber would agree, that is, effectively, presidential government via the legislature. It is essential, therefore, that Ministers are brought to account. The Minister for Trade and Competitiveness in Europe, Lord Simon, and the Minister for Science, Lord Sainsbury, are two good recent examples--I will not go into the politics of that because you would certainly rule me out of order, Sir Alan--
of why we need proper scrutiny of Ministers in the upper House. Without that, we would be failing in our duty to hold the Government properly to account.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) mentioned the strengthening of the House by the Conservatives and identified the setting up of Select Committees as one of the ways in which previous Conservative Governments, when we had large majorities, set about making sure that there was a balance of power and that Parliament was able to have better control over the Executive. I pay handsome tribute to House of Lords Select Committees such as the Science and Technology Committee, which has already been mentioned by several hon. Members, and the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee. Those Committees do tremendous work, boosting the reputation of Parliament and improving its workings.
Our Select Committees are one of the finest parts of the institutions of our Parliament, but there is a considerable way to go in strengthening them. There is an appetite in both Houses for Select Committees to be given more teeth to bring the Executive ever more to account. One of the more healthy trends in recent politics is that Select Committee Chairmen have been willing to bear their fangs a little more at the Executive, which is entirely understandable when they are treated with contempt by the Government. For example, the Government say that they will ignore any criticisms made of them by a Select Committee.
For Select Committees to work, the culture governing them must be working properly and the culture of the Government must be governed by a willingness to accept criticism when it is valid.
Mrs. Beckett:
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not mean to mislead the House. I am sure, too, that he is aware of the doctrine on relationships between Ministers and Select Committees, as promulgated by the then Leader of the House, Lord Howe, in 1990. I do not have the words with me, but that doctrine makes it very plain that there is nothing out of the way in Ministers responding to criticism from Select Committees, whether in reports, comment from hon. Members or whatever. Indeed, that is part of the robust relationship between Ministers and Select Committees.
Dr. Fox:
I absolutely accept that. What I find rather bizarre is the concept that Ministers should criticise Select Committee reports before they are published and should say that, if there is any criticism of the Government, they will not accept it. That is either utter stupidity or utter arrogance. I tend to think that it is the latter.
New clause 24 asks those who are Members of the House of Lords by virtue of a life peerage to make a declaration of willingness to scrutinise, once and for all. New clause 25 asks for that declaration at the beginning of every Session of Parliament and new clause 26 asks for a declaration once every Parliament. Of the three, new clause 26 strikes the better balance and its request is more reasonable.
The Government are obsessed with composition. We should move the debate on to firmer territory. If we are to make progress, and if we are to get anything like the consensus that the Government say in the White Paper that they seek, we must move the debate on to territory
on which we can make progress. We must get away from the Government's obsession with composition and deal with the role and functions of the other place. We are talking not about Mickey Mouse changes, but about a fundamental alteration to the way in which we are governed. The nation needs to know what those changes will be.
The new clauses set out in more detail than anything the Government have produced what an interim Chamber should be doing. I ask my colleagues to support the new clause in the Lobby.
Mr. Fallon:
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his ingenuity in finally bringing the Committee round to the subject that should have occupied us from the beginning--the functions of the Chamber that we seek to reform. I compliment him on his further ingenuity in offering the Committee three variations of the new clause. Like him, I much prefer new clause 26, which is slightly less bureaucratic than new clause 24, and avoids some unnecessary form filling.
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